2. speakers
  3. 1378158806

Speakers with their own amps

Was just wondering,

Are there speakers out there that have their own amps to drive the whole speaker?
Not just internal amps to drive the subs but also amps to drive midrange & treble.

I see 2 advantages to this.
1. One could drive the speakers with just a preamp avoiding the cost of amp/amps.
2. Would allow the designer to voice the speaker to their design and how they wanted them to sound.

Would probably still allow the consumer to balance their systems sound, to one's liking, via a preamp, processor, cabling, etc.

I have the ability to drive my speakers from my preamp leaving my amp to drive the mids & highs.
I've come to like this option.

Thoughts?
128x128joysjane

Showing 3 responses by doggiehowser

doggiehowser
672 posts
 
I had a pair of Focal Solo 6 Be and I have to say they were phenomenal. It doesn't have the nice piano finish of the Focal Electro 1007/8Be but it has the important guts where it matters. W woofer and Beryllium tweeter - trademark of Focal's high end stuff for a fraction of the price.

The only downsides are that most active speakers have a pretty low input impedance (10 or 20kOhms) and this might be an issue with some tube preamps especially those that don't use negative feedback (ie the better ones).
doggiehowser
672 posts
 
This was the feedback I got from Ayon. They implement no negative feedback and as a result, there was quite an audible noise from the Ayon as a preamp when I used the Solo. Using a SS preamp fixed that.
doggiehowser
672 posts
 
The buzzing was apparently a result of lack of negative feedback and impedance and not just an impedance mismatch issue. Impedance mismatch would normally just give you a rolled off frequency response.
More to discover